Author will talk about ‘myth of American innocence’

Author Barry Spector will give a free public talk on his book, “Madness at the Gates of the City: the Myth of American Innocence,” at 3 p.m. Sunday in the Blanchard Room of the Stephens Branch Library, 315 E. 14th St. in Davis.

Spector looks at America through the lenses of Greek mythology, indigenous wisdom and archetypal psychology and traces the big stories by which we define ourselves as Americans back to our roots in the earliest days of the colonies all the way to the social, political and economic crises we’re struggling with today.

“By lifting the veil of false innocence that distorts our vision, his book enables us to find new insights and new ways to understand how we behave in the world and what we might become,” a news release said.